My Wild Baking Journey
If you told me years ago that I’d be baking wedding cakes today, I’d have laughed and told you, “abeg, shift!” Because honestly, I stumbled into this whole baking thing o.
Back in university, I was the welfare secretary for my fellowship, and part of my job was to organize cakes for birthday celebrants every month. Those cakes were eating deep into our small budget, so I had a bright idea: “Why not just learn how to bake it ourselves?”. So I got someone to teach us how to bake. The measurements were just vibes and “add small more flour”, but the cake was sweet.
Fast forward to my master’s abroad, I would bake for my church people, and they kept hyping me. Then one day, someone called asking me to bake and decorate a fondant cake for a small girl’s birthday. The birthday was THE NEXT DAY. My brain said no, but my mouth said yes. That £5 cake changed my life. By the time I came back to Nigeria, I bought every baking tool I could find and decided to take this seriously.
My First Wedding Cake (I Thought I Don Hammer)
Ah, my first wedding cake job, I remember it like yesterday. A friend I met in the UK was getting married. She had always said, “You’ll make my wedding cake,” but I never took her seriously. Until the day she called and said, “Babe, I need that cake o.”
I agreed, panicked for a few minutes, then got to work. She wanted a four-tiered square cake. I charged 100,000 naira and felt like Dangote. I was barely one year into baking professionally. In my mind, I don hammer!
The Day My Cake Collapsed (And My Spirit Followed)
But God has a funny way of humbling people. That same “I don hammer” wedding taught me the hardest lesson of my life.
Everything that could go wrong actually went wrong. My cakes kept sinking one after the other. Same oven I’d been using o! At some point, I looked at the batter and said, “My village people have finally found me.”
I had to call my teacher-friend for help. She allowed me to bake at her place, and thankfully, everything came out fine. I even decided to decorate the cake there. For days, after work, I’d drive to her place to finish it. Finally, the cake was done and looking beautiful.
Two days to the wedding, I loaded it into my car for the 7-hour trip to the wedding. My friend had warned me not to stack it before traveling, but you see this my coconut head… I said, “Let me just keep it on the front seat so I can watch it.”
Five minutes into the journey, I noticed something strange, the top tiers were sinking. I parked immediately. In the middle of the dark road, I stepped out, hands on my head like a typical Nigerian aunty shouting “Mogbe o!”
A random man walked up and said, “Madam, do you need help?”
I said, “Oga, I need help, but you cannot help me.”
Long story short, I rebaked, redecorated, and still made that trip. The wedding was beautiful, the bride was over the moon, and I… well, I learned humility and logistics management that day.
That experience toughened me up. If I could survive that cake wahala, I knew I could survive anything.
The Turning Point
2018 was my year. It was like someone announced my name somewhere, and everybody started looking for me.
That same year, I had two weddings in one week apart. It felt huge! But 2024? That was the real level-up. I had two wedding cakes on the same day. That was the moment I knew we’re no longer playing small. We had leveled up.
The Moment That Made It All Worth It
There’s one wedding I’ll never forget. I had just finished setting up the cake when the bride walked in to see the venue. She spotted the cake and literally screamed. Then she started praying for me right there. The joy on her face was priceless, I almost teared up (but I had to maintain composure, you know).
That same day, people wouldn’t stop complimenting the cake. Strangers, vendors, even the photographer. That was the day I realized this isn’t just baking. This is my ministry.
Final Crumb of the Story
Looking back now, it’s wild to think that a small cake baked in a university hostel kitchen turned into this journey.
Every disaster, every late night, every “Mogbe” moment on the road, all of it built me into the baker I am today.
So if you’re scared of starting something because you might fail, fail. Fail spectacularly if you have to. Just learn from it and keep going. Because on the other side of that collapsed cake might be your biggest breakthrough.